Community

Edit: Revised unclear statement

Talk about loaded.

In general, I feel participants are entitled to whatever they want so long as it doesn't take away from the quality of play of others at the table.  That being the other participants ability to meaningfully contribute to all aspects of play.

This applies to everyone.  A DM isn't entitled to trivialize the contribution of players through a grandstanding DMPC for example.  A player isn't entitled to shank the other characters in their bedrolls as another.

What to include and exclude in a campaign should be a joint effort.  DMs should make efforts to include the things the players want.  Players should make efforts to not do things the other players and the DM don't want.  The middle ground being adjusting the things they each want until it works as a compromise.

The difference between "interesting" DM'ing and "oppressive" DM'ing is that the interesting one takes player feedback.  The oppressive one ignores feedback.  When the attempt to make something interesting ignores the interests of others.  Players can be a worldbuilding tool, after all.

Jan 25, 2010 -- 1:15PM, The_Stray wrote:

What is player entitlement? What does it entail, exactly?

Players are entitled to be treated as equal collaborators on the campaign, and to have their ideas listened to, considered honestly, and critiqued fairly, provided they do the same for everybody else at the table.

When does accepting reasonable player requests for a game stop being reasonable and turn into an entitlement complex?

When the player refuses to compromise or see how their request will harm the other players' sense of fun.

When does a DM's ideas on the type of campaign they run stop being "interesting" and start becoming "oppressive?"

Nobody can determine this but the players in the DM's game.

Where is the line drawn on what is reasonable to include and what to exclude in a campaign?

It's reasonable to include or exclude anything – classes, races, mechanics, mounts, creatures, specific or general flavor, certain character background, whatever – provided either everybody is in agreement or you can show why a particular idea is impossible with/without said feature.  In the latter case it comes down to whether or not everybody can be swayed that the inclusion/exclusion of said feature will add enough to the experience that they are willing to include/exclude it despite their reservations.  If there is disagreement on whether it will add anything then there is no one-size-fits-all way to resolve the situation.  Some groups will vote, some will discard the idea if even one person objects, sometimes a player will take a break for a little while and come back when they are more interested.  That's really a personal issue – how do you deal with conflict with your collaborators? – more than an issue specific to the game.

I know this is a huge can of worms to be opening. My hope is that it fosters honest debate.

So where do you stand?

As far as I am concerned, running a game of DnD is like a collaborative creative writing project.  If I invite somebody to come help me write a story, and they say "How about a story about fairy princesses and teddy bears," then I do not necessarily have to say yes, but if I say no I should follow it up with a constructive suggestion.  If possible I should accept the suggestion and propose a modification that will make the topic more interesting to me.  Perhaps, "OK, but the teddy bears eat babies and the fairy princesses are really succubi who have perverted sex with people in their dreams and suck out their life force."  You never know.  Your new collaborator may well say, "Oh, yeah, that is totally sweet."